Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 94

Chapter 94

JULIAN

I got into my car and drove to meet my other contact. The one who was going to help me find the people blackmailing me.

The place was a nondescript building in a part of the city I didn’t usually frequent. I walked in and was led to a back room where my contact was waiting. He was a lean man with sharp eyes and a computer setup that looked like something out of a spy movie.

“Show me what you’ve got,” he said.

I pulled out my phone and played the video I had already sent to him but he had not had the time to watch yet. He watched it without expression, his eyes taking in more details.

“The text came from this number.” I showed him again. “And they want fifty million dollars in Bitcoin.”

He nodded, typing on his keyboard. “Let me see what I can find.”

I paced while he worked. The minutes ticked by. Five. Ten. Fifteen. I checked my phone obsessively, waiting for another message from the blackmailers, waiting for my Pl to update me about Celeste.

Nothing.

“If you find them, what do you intend to do?” my contact asked without looking up from his screen. “If you involve the police, this could get out. Become a scandal.”

“The most important thing is that the video never reaches my wife,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking last night.”

But I did know. It was all Celeste’s fault. If she had just spoken to me last night. If she had just picked up the phone and told me to come home. I’d been ready to. I’d walked out of that club. I was going to fix things, but she got me so upset that I went back in and fell into that woman’s trap.

All. Her. Fault.

But if that video went viral, my relationship with Celeste would never recover. She might even lose all the love she had for me. And my reputation would take a hit. Most of the people who knew us always praised our marriage. They called me the best husband. They told Celeste how lucky she was to have me. And she felt lucky too. I knew she did.

So deep down, the one thing I could never let Celeste find out was that I’d been cheating. If I could just take care of this one issue, I would never make such a mistake again. I would apologize to Celeste. Forget about all the fighting. Ask my mother and sister to leave so our lives could go back to normal. If she was so crazy about pursuing whatever she wanted at her research lab, I would just let her have her way. As long as she was happy.

It was better this way. Celeste was not someone I could live without. The place she held in my heart was too important for me to risk losing her.

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“I’ve got something,” my contact said.

I crossed to his desk. “What?”

He turned his screen toward me. There was a picture of the redhead from last night. Her name and details displayed beside it.

“Her name is Scarlett Vance. Twenty-three years old. She’s part of a group called the Phantom Circle. Two men, four women. They target rich men and women, get them into compromising situations, and blackmail them. You’re not her first victim. They’ve done this before. After blackmailing a few people and collecting, they move to a different city. They seem to have set their eyes on you specifically. Took advantage of the opportunity when you showed up at that club.”

I stared at the screen. Scarlett Vance. Twenty-three, Part of a blackmail ring.

“Do you have a location?”

He tapped a few keys. “There’s an apartment complex on the east side. I can’t guarantee they’re still there, but it’s the last place their phones pinged from.”

“Send me the address.”

He did. I forwarded it to the team of men I’d already arranged. Seven armed men, all of whom I’d worked with before. Men who knew how to handle situations like this.

I drove to the address, meeting them outside the apartment complex. It was a rundown building, the kind of place you’d expect to find people who lived on the fringes. We went in hard, weapons drawn, ready for anything.

But the apartment was empty.

We searched every room. The beds were unmade. There were glasses on the table, still wet, like someone had been drinking from them minutes ago. A half-eaten sandwich sat on the counter. They’d been here. Recently. But they were gone.

“Someone tipped them off,” one of my men said.

I cursed under my breath. “Search everywhere. I want anything that might tell us where they went.”

They spread out, tearing through drawers, cabinets, closets. I stood in the middle of the living room, my hands balled into fists. How the hell had they known?

“Found something.”

I turned. One of the men held up a bracelet. A thin gold chain with a small charm shaped like a heart. I recognized it immediately. Scarlett had been wearing it last night. I remembered catching the glint of it in the dim light as she rode me.

I took it from him, turning it over in my hand. They’d been here. They’d been right here. And now they were gone.

2/4

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“Find them,” I said, my voice low. “No matter what it takes, find them.”

The men hurried out, spreading to search the surrounding area. I stayed in the apartment, staring at the bracelet, my mind spinning.

Then my phone rang.

I looked at the screen. Private number.

I let it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Finally, with no other choice, I answered.

“Hello, Julian. Did you miss me?”

Her voice. That same playful, teasing tone from last night. Scarlett.

I gritted my teeth. “I should have known.”

“Oh, shut up and listen to me. Your two hours have elapsed. And you should have just sent the money quietly. But you had to act like a hero and come after me, didn’t you?”

“Where are you?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is that there’s a punishment for your little stunt. Since the two hours elapsed and you didn’t send the money, the price just doubled. One hundred million dollars. Send it to the same wallet address. You have ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?”

“And I promise you, if in ten minutes that money doesn’t drop, your video is going to be all over social media. Every platform. Every site. Your wife. Your family. Everyone will see it. This is the last time you hear from me. Goodbye.”

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